An Undeserving Victim
by RTFict
Summary: When something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Jun always gave Hiro a weird feeling, but he chalked it up to nerves and butterflies in the beginning. Jun had never intended for things to become so entangled, but in the end, they'll both have to decide which is more important, each other, or protecting everything they've ever worked for. Hiro x OC, T for language
1. Chapter One - Introductions

This is sort of an idea I've had for a while, and finally got around to writing it. I haven't read very many Hiro x Male!OC stories, actually, so I really wanted to try my hand at wring one. Reviews are appreciated, and I'll continue if there's enough interest in the plot.

* * *

Jun brought his hand to his jaw gingerly, the taste of blood staining his tongue. He turned his startled gaze towards his aggressors, but his protest died in his throat as the toe of a boot connected with his stomach, sending him sprawling on his side. He let out a few pathetic coughs, his stomach dropping as he spotted droplets of blood on the ground below him.

"Old man ain't around to protect'ya anymore, kid," the largest of the men surrounding the boy sneered, laughing cruelly at Jun's vain attempts to scuttle away. "Th'way I see it, this is a valuable lesson fer you." He cracked his knuckles, more for show than for function, and reached to grab a fistful of Jun's shirt. The 13 year old was still wearing his suit and tie; these assholes hadn't even give him a chance to change out of his mourning clothes yet. Holding him up to eye level, the man's sneer split into a downright creepy grin, and he chuckled as Jun flinched away. "Y'can't live off yer dear ol' Dad's status forever."

"Please," Jun feebly pleaded, flinching away hard, before a fist connected with his jaw again. The ungodly 'CRUNCH' that followed, and the loose tooth he could feel bumping around in his bloody mouth was the tipping point, and he couldn't help but let go of the tears he was holding back. He was no match for these guys! He was just a kid! And besides, these had been his father's goons; why were they turning on him all of a sudden? Were they really that unloyal?

"Begging won't get you nothin'," the mobster laughed, which was followed by the laughter of those circling the two. The bastards, just watching the son of their dead superior getting the snot kicked out of him. "You want respect? You gatta earn it, boy. Starting today, you're bottom of the heap, you got that?"

Things had always been easy for Jun Kurosawa. His father had made his fortune on the black market, and Jun had never wanted for anything. He'd grown up idolizing Yakuza gangsters, aspiring to the illegal lifestyle. But now that his father was gone, and with it the status he'd once enjoyed, he was realizing the cold, hard truth of the matter; Jun was nothing without his father. Now that he was gone, where was he? Just like the gangster had said, at the bottom of the heap.

But he wasn't going to stay there for long.

* * *

"Hiro, can you come take a look at this real quick?" Hiro paused as one of his undergraduate students waved him over, anxiety clearly scrawled across her face. The opening ceremonies of the showcase were still about two hours away, but the Expo Hall was buzzing with activity, with students setting up and preparing their tech for exhibition. The student that had waved Hiro down was frantically tinkering with the CPU of her project, looking more frazzled with each passing moment.

"Sure," he said, breaking away from the gang to take a look. "What's up?"

"It's just not…doing what it's supposed to do! I don't know what's going on!" The student ran her hand through her hair, shooting the graduate student a harried glance. "Maybe I jostled it the wrong way bringing it up this morning; maybe I saved over the file, maybe I-"

"Whoa, whoa, calm down," Hiro laughed, bending to take a look at the deconstructed insides of the student's biomedical project. Tinkering with it a few moments, he snapped his fingers as he realized what had gone awry, before unplugging several chords, and reattaching them in their proper places. "You just had your aux chords mixed up. You should really color code these things, you know."

"Gah, stupid mistake!" the student said, slapping her hand to her forehead. "Thank you, Hiro, you really know how to save a girl when she needs it!" Hiro laughed again, the irony of the statement not lost on him, and straightened up.

"Hey, don't worry about it! Just lighten up a little, yeah? It's an Expo, not the end of the world. It's supposed to be fun, right?" Waving as he turned back to his friends, Hiro shoved his hands in his pockets, leaving the undergrad to her setup. He wore a somewhat self-congratulatory smile; such were the perks of being a graduate student. Nearly everyone at SFIT knew who he was already, but as a graduate student, part of his degree involved teaching 100 and 200 level classes in the robotics department. Most of the exhibits this evening were projects by his students, and he would be lying if he didn't feel some sense of pride over them.

"Hiro to the rescue, huh?" Wasabi asked, rustling the younger boy's hair, which was really pretty impressive, considering Wasabi was the shorter of the two at this point. Grinning and batting him aside, Hiro shrugged.

"Hey, what can I say? I'm quite the super hero."

"Very modest of you." Gogo rolled her eyes and shook her head. "C'mon, 'Hero', get your head outta the clouds. We're heading over to registration now." Grabbing him by the elbow, she towed him along beside her as Honey Lemon giggled.

"We still have a long time before the Expo starts, and we haven't seen everything yet," he protested, looking back over his shoulder.

"And you wanna see everything before it even starts?" Gogo replied. "Jeez, you're impatient, aren't you?" The five of them made their way to the front of the hall, to the long registration table currently being set up. Hiro was supposed to be on the SFIT Expo committee, helping with setup, but he usually preferred to slack off or skip out of his duties to run around the hall, gawking at the projects being set up. But now that Gogo was on the committee as well, he knew his days of slacking off his duties were over. He pouted slightly when she took one of the flattened folding chairs from a nearby stack, and pressed it into his hands. "Here. Unfold, put it down, repeat."

"I know, I know." Hiro resigned himself follow her directions, while Honey Lemon and Wasabi started organizing the various forms the students had turned in that morning. Fred was…well, it was enough that Fred wasn't actively screwing things up, he didn't really need to be doing much as long as he didn't ruin anything. And about an hour before the Expo was going to begin, the gang could see the foyer begin to fill with attendees and investors, all eager for the opening ceremonies and their chance at the first look of this year's newest Tech.

No one besides presenters, professors and the committee could enter the main exhibition space before the commencement, and yet, when a dark-tinted, top of the line four-door pulled up outside and several men in unusually sharp suits cut through the crowd in the foyer, they were immediately granted entrance into the hall by a few of the professors who stepped up to greet them quietly. Hiro had been leaning back in one of the fold-up chairs, his feet up on the table he'd help set up when he'd seen this, and sat up quickly, his eyebrows furrowing together.

"Hey, what's their deal?" he asked quietly, leaning close to Gogo so he could keep his voice low. Following his line of sight to the dark-suited men, Gogo shrugged, popping her gum.

"Dunno. Never seen anyone get an advanced screening of the exhibition before." She elbowed Wasabi to grab his attention, who in turn mumbled something to Honey and Fred. All five pairs of curious eyes followed the odd group.

"Maybe they're from some important foreign company?" Honey Lemon proposed, but Hiro was feeling a bit uneasy about this.

"Maybe they're from the CIA; they're all in black!" Fred said, quick to jump to the most preposterous idea. Still staring at them, Hiro was trying to count how many there were; he thought it was only six, but he couldn't really tell. There seemed to be one man in the middle of several others, but he couldn't get a clear look at his face.

"Well, whatever they're doing, they're being led around by Professor Finnigan," Gogo said, going back to the mechanic magazine she'd been leafing through. "So we know they're sanctioned by the school. It's probably just some investors who paid a little extra to get an advance tour."

"Gogo's right," Honey said, nodding slightly.

"But, the CIA-"

"Fred!" As the others slowly went back to their own business, Hiro kept staring. There was something up with this group. In all his seven years at SFIT, this had never happened. The Expo regulations were pretty strict; since many students received funding and grants from private investors through the Expo, no one group could gain access before the commencement ceremony. It was to keep things fair. If this group was in before the others, then Hiro had the sneaking suspicion that they'd done so under the table.

But just as he was coming to this conclusion, he was thrown off guard a bit, as a pair of eyes locked with his. The man in the middle of the group, who he couldn't see before, had turned slightly and caught Hiro's gaze. The group had paused by one of the student's projects, and from across the vast hall, Hiro felt frozen by this guy's stare. Likewise, his dark-suited counterpart wasn't moving either. There was a feeling of momentary panic; should he look away and pretend he hadn't noticed a thing? No, this prolonged stare had gone on too long for that. This was no passing glance. He was just starting to feel nervous, when his counterpart smiled slightly, before turning back to watch the presentation before him.

For those few moments of eye contact, Hiro had felt like he'd been underwater; noises and movements around him seemed muffled, blurry, far away. But as soon as the other turned away, the general buzz of commotion around him crashed back over his senses, and he shook his head to clear his mind. That had been weird. This was all weird. Than man had looked much too young to be a major researcher or CEO. He'd barely looked older than Hiro! He was really getting a bad vibe from all of this.

"Hiro?" Snapping out of his thoughts, he looked up to see Honey Lemon holding out his badge for him to take. "Are you okay? You looked like you were kinda dazed there for a minute." Taking the lanyard with his committee pass on it, he slipped it around his neck, and brushed off his friend's concerns.

"I'm fine, just, getting lost in my own thought I guess." He gave her a reassuring smile, which she returned, and dropped the subject. But he couldn't drop the subject from his thoughts. Hiro had an eye for small detail, he wasn't one to gloss over things like that.

"I know you've been itching to get out there." Hiro looked up from the pencil he was tapping on the table, as Gogo crossed her arms. "You're enthusiasm for getting investors registered is a bit lacking."

"Are you kidding me?" he asked, cracking a crooked smile. "I live for registration! This is my calling, Gogo! Forget all that robotics crap; behind a desk, stacking forms is where I'm meant to be!" She smiled and shoved his shoulder, before jerking her thumb over her shoulder.

"Go on, get out of here," she commanded, as he jumped up from his chair. "Lord knows you're not getting much done here anyway." She shook her head as she watched him go, figuring his excitement was from getting to catch a glimpse of the undergrad's projects. And she wasn't entirely wrong, but Hiro had other motivations as well. Mainly, tracking down that mysterious group from earlier.

He wasn't really sure what he was going to do if he caught up with them; walk right up and ask them 'What are you doing here'? No, that was stupid. What was anyone doing here? Coming to see the tech Expo, that's what. But still, he wanted to find them. Maybe if he eavesdropped a little, he'd find out more…

He finally caught a glimpse of them through the crowd, stopped at a particularly extensive exhibit, showing off one student's experiments with the properties of anti-gravity and it's practical applications. He took a full double take before weaving through the throng of people around him, looking for a place to eavesdrop from. Ducking behind a support pillar, he scanned the group, and suddenly realized they were one man short.

'The leader?' he thought to himself, his eyebrows knitting together again. The man he'd made eye contact with earlier was absent, and for some reason, Hiro had the notion that he wouldn't be hearing anything too interesting without that particular man present. Using his height as an advantage, he scanned the visible part of the Expo hall. 'This is stupid,' he told himself, 'I don't even really remember what he looks like, not like I'm gonna recognize him, even if I could see him…' But sure enough, he caught a small glimpse of a dark suit, disappearing in the crowd to his right. Stunned momentarily, he took off after him.

It was a little crazy, sure. But Hiro was nothing if not curious. 'Terminal Curiosity' Gogo had once called it, and at the moment, an old proverb about a cat came to mind. But he pushed that thought aside for now, and tried to stay a considerable distance behind this man, without being seen, but without losing him. It was proving rather difficult. He nearly lost him several times, but each time Hiro was sure he wouldn't be able to catch back up, there he was. Checking out an exhibit, checking his phone, stopping to say a few words to an investor or professor here and there. He never paused for long, so Hiro never got too close, but it was convenient. In fact, it was so convenient, if Hiro hadn't known better, he would have sworn the man was doing it on purpose.

He was sure that wasn't the case, though. Sure, that is, until he realized in what direction the man was headed.

He watched as he passed Gogo, saying something he couldn't quite catch. Gogo nodded and watched him exit the hall, and the instant the man exited the foyer, Hiro skidded to a halt beside her.

"Whoa!" she said, eyebrows raising, "Hiro, what's the rush?"

"What did he just say?" Hiro asked, eyes flickering from the foyer back to his friend's confused face. "That man, do you know who he is?"

"He wanted to know if he'd be able to come back in and rejoin his associates if he went outside to make a call," Gogo said, crossing her arms. "What's going on with you, Hiro…Hey, where are you going?" She called after him as he made his way out of the hall. He surprised himself a bit by the pace of his walk; he wasn't exactly worried about losing the guy, and he wasn't quite running. But he was walking quicker than normal.

Descending the staircase, he looked around for a moment, his lips pressed into a thin line when he didn't immediately see the object of his current fascination. Maybe he really was acting a bit crazy. After all, there probably wasn't anything fishy about this guy or his associates in the first place. They were probably just finicky bankers who'd requested an advanced screening.

"You're losin' it, Hiro," he mumbled to himself, chuckling slightly. He was about to turn back around and climb the stairs again, shoving his hands in his hoody's pockets, when, there he was. Just like that, the man appeared. But this time, he was facing Hiro, and when he looked up, Hiro flinched slightly, realizing the man was staring at him again. And when he made eye contact, the man jerked his chin slightly, as if to subtly beckon him forward.

Hiro felt weirdly shocked by this, and hesitated for a moment. The man had turned his back again, and was walking off, down the path towards the Robotics Lab. Hiro looked back up at the Expo hall, suddenly wondering if this was such a good idea. Following someone to eavesdrop was one thing, but now his presence was known. The man didn't look dangerous, but you never knew.

But Hiro was nothing if not impulsive. His feet moved forward first, and his brain soon agreed that there was probably nothing to worry about. He easily caught up to the man, but kept a half-step behind him.

"Do I know you?" Hiro asked, raising an eyebrow. Looking at his profile as he was, he could see the small smile the man wore, though his half-lidded eyes kept the same dull, semi-disinterested look to them. His features were somewhat angular, not unlike Hiro's, though his eyes were darker, nearly black, and more of an almond shape. As they walked slowly along the lit path, the evening breeze ruffled Hiro's ever-messy hair, but did not seem to touch the man's black locks, which he wore short, neat, and slicked back, not unlike a business man, which was what Hiro assumed him to be. He looked perfectly calm and well-kept, and this made him seem older, or at least wiser than Hiro. But in truth, he couldn't have been more than a few years his senior.

"Probably not," the man said, his smile growing slightly. "You'd have to be a pretty despicable type of person to know me." His face turned minutely towards Hiro and his dark eyes glinted slightly; he was making a joke, Hiro realized. But it didn't make him laugh. Something about the tone of his voice made that statement seem, uncomfortable somehow. "But I know you," the man continued. His hands were folded behind his back.

"You do?" Hiro asked, his chest suddenly constricting slightly. What was this? Was this some weird set up?

"Of course. All of San Fransokyo is familiar with your particular brand of charity." He felt rather stupid at the man continued, for feeling nervous so suddenly. Of course he was talking about Big Hero 6. What else could he have meant? 'Chill out, Hamada,' he thought to himself.

"Our identities were supposed to be secret," he lamely put in, though his vigilante justice was a pretty well-known fact as of recently. The man nodded slightly.

"I imagine they were. I've always regarded the six of you to be vastly humble; if it were me, I'd brand my name all over my good deeds." He paused then, under a street lamp, his face going blank. "Speaking of names, I haven't given you mine, have I?"

"Uh, er, no," Hiro said, feeling a little weirded out by the entire situation.

"Jun Kurosawa," the man supplied, unfolding his hands from behind his back, and extending one to shake. Hiro hesitated briefly, but shook it eventually. Jun's grip was almost eerie; not too hard, not too soft, it felt like he was trying very hard to seem actively neutral. Like it was taking a lot of concentration to seem so calm and put together. This was a type of person Hiro knew he'd never be, and honestly, a type of person he didn't entirely trust. "But please, just Jun is fine. I'm not a fan of being called Mr. Kurosawa."

"Alright, 'Just Jun'," Hiro said, withdrawing his hand and quickly stowing it back in his pocket. "Uh, it's nice to meet you. So…seen anything interesting so far inside?" he asked, gesturing behind him to the Expo Hall. Hiro was still operating under the assumption that this was merely an eccentric investor, even if his gut was telling him otherwise. Jun smiled slightly, looking away briefly, before shaking his head.

"Nothing on display really caught my eye," he said, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "Though I'm sure my associates will 'urge' me to back whatever they've decided is good enough." He chuckled slightly at this, and Hiro's expression faltered.

"Nothing caught your eye," he repeated, a little astonished by that, "at all? I mean, there's a lot of brilliant tech in there tonight."

"I didn't say that," Jun said, cocking an eyebrow. This struck Hiro as a rather strange thing to say, but before he could press further about what that meant, Jun continued. "Actually, if I'm being frank, I was a little disappointed not to see any of your work out on the floor."

"My work?" Jun nodded, and started to turn, leaving the spotlight of the streetlamp to walk leisurely down the path. Everything this guy did seemed manufactured to Hiro, like he was doing it on purpose, for some motive, but it was confusing the hell out of him! He jogged to catch up, and kept pace beside him. "I don't…I'm not looking for investors for anything I'm doing," he said, shooting the man a quizzical look. "I have a grant through the Institute."

"That's a shame," Jun said. "University investment is one thing, but I was just hoping after all this time, you'd be looking for outlets to go commercial with your inventions."

"Oooh." Hiro stopped, and smiled at himself; damn was he stupid! He should have known it from the start; of course Krei would send a guy like Jun. A new face, one Hiro wouldn't recognize, that strange, chilling demeanor he carried himself with, the slick way he spoke. He nearly laughed at himself; her he was, almost falling for it. "Ha, ah man, you're good, I'll give you that!" Jun turned to look at him in surprise, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead. "Look, tell Krei I'm not interested in his money. Jeez, even after all this time-"

"I think you've vastly misjudged my intentions, Mr. Hamada," Jun interrupted, doubling back to stand in front of Hiro. The two were nearly perfectly matched in height, though Hiro's only claim to being taller came from the messy way he wore his hair. "And my origins. I have no affiliation with Krei Tech; in fact, you might say we're closer to enemies than associates. And I'm not offering you money." He paused then, seemingly considering his own words, before restating. "Well, not merely money. A Philanthropic person like yourself must see the benefit to commercializing your inventions?" He was very nearly leaning over Hiro at this point, and he had the sudden urge to try and back away, though there was something in the way those half-lidded eyes took hold of him that immobilized him. "How hard do you work keeping this city safe? And yet there's always trouble lurking around the corner. There's only six of you, after all. But imagine if you commercialized your technology, marketed it. Entire police forces wearing your inventions. Crime would become virtually nonexistent. Or at the very least, much more manageable."

"Er," was all Hiro was able to get in edgewise.

"But," he finished, finally backing off. As he did so, it almost felt like Hiro was regaining his senses after a stint of paralysis; he felt like he should be shaking the sleep from his arms and hands. "They are your inventions, after all. They're yours to do with what you want. I'm just an overly-persistent investment banker who's just a little disappointed I can't claim to be the one to back the famous Hiro Hamada and his earth-shattering inventions." He held that eerily calm smile of his throughout his little tirade, and now, as he checked the watch he wore, his eyebrows pulled together somewhat. "Damn. Time seems to escape you when you're trying to put a foot in the door.

"Uh…" Hiro still didn't seem to know what to make of this encounter, but he watched Jun pull something from his jacket, and hold it out for him to take. It was a slip of paper, and when Hiro accepted it, he found it had small silver lettering on either side.

"My business card," Jun supplied, straightening out the lapels on his jacket, and cocking an eyebrow. "If you ever do decide you'd like to see what outside funding can do for you, and for San Fransokyo."

"…Sure." Hiro didn't know what to make of all this, but there was one thing he was sure of; his gut was telling him in no uncertain terms that this man, while not affiliated with Krei, struck him as just as slimy. He tucked the card into his pocket, but honestly had very little intention to ever give it a second glance. It seemed to placate Jun, though, who glanced back past Hiro's shoulder, towards the Hall.

"Seems my associates have finished up without me," he remarked, prompting Hiro to turn, and see several of the dark-suited men climbing into the back of the dark-tinted car from before. "I'd better go, before I keep them waiting too long."

"Alright," Hiro replied, watching the man go warily.

"And think about what I've said," he called over his shoulder, before he was out of earshot. He made his way back to the car, and without another glance back, climbed in. The vehicle pulled away from the front entrance, and just like that, they were gone. And that left Hiro standing alone in the dark, a business card in his pocket and a strange feeling in his gut.

* * *

"Took you long enough." Jun took his seat in the back facing the others, eyes narrowing at his 'associates'.

"I had to make my point," he said defensively, "what did you want me to do, throw the card at him and run?"

"But the card is planted, right?"

"Of course it is! I know how to do my own job." The men sitting around Jun looked at each other sullenly, before nodding slightly.

"Did he seem interested?" one man asked, and at this Jun scoffed.

"Of course not. I really laid on the sleeze, I'm sure he thinks I'm nothing but a greedy, money-grubbing investor like the rest of them." Ruffling his hair out of the slick hairstyle he wore, his eyebrows knitted closely together over his dark eyes. "The point wasn't to sign him on board right away, anyway."

"This plan relies too much on how highly you think of yourself, Kurosawa," another man snarked, jabbing him hard in the shoulder. "You're already on thin ice, kid. You fuck this one up too and there'll be hell t'pay.

"Hey, relax," he commanded, though he was hardly in a position to be making demands. "Have a little faith, will you? This'll work. There's no possible way for it to go wrong."

"Hmm." This seemed to placate the elder men who ringed him, and internally, Jun let out a sigh of relief. He knew this heist would work. Or at the very least, he sure hoped it would.


	2. Chapter Two - Sunday Morning

'Bzzt bzzt bzzt.'

"Mmm…shuddup…." At first, it seemed as if whomever had spoken had done so from the bed, though it was obvious to anyone looking that there wasn't anyone on the bed, just a jumble of blankets and pillows on a bare mattress. But after the fourteenth or fifteenth 'bzzt' from the phone sitting on the nightstand beside the bed, a hand rose from the heap, and started slapping ineffectually around the surface of the end table, trying in vain to shut off the alarm. "Shuuush, it's too early," the voice groaned, eventually able to knock the phone to the floor, silencing it for now. The hand quickly retreated into the warmth of the blankets, and the entire mountain shifted as the occupant of the makeshift nest shifted beneath it.

'Bzzt bzzt bzzt.'

"God damn it." As the snooze alarm began to sound not five minutes later, the man under all those blankets rose, albeit reluctantly. Leaning down off the mattress, he fished around for the device, before clicking the alarm off, and glancing at the screen. '12:30' it read on the screen that was all too bright for his tired eyes. Squinting, he finally sat up properly, and stretched his back. Tossing the phone aside, he stood, and made his way to the opposite side of the room. Snatching a shirt that was not yet dirty enough to be tossed onto the floor from where it was slung over the back of his desk chair, he lazily pulled it over her head, and winced slightly, as it caught on his ear piercings. Pulling his head all the way through, his mop of black hair fell back into his eyes, sticking up every which way from sleeping on it.

"Good afternoon," came the calming voice of Baymax who, upon hearing Hiro stumble out of bed, had inflated from his charging station, and made his way over.

"Hey buddy," Hiro yawned, his eyes squeezing shut as he did so. He scratched his back languidly under his tshirt, before collapsing into his desk chair, and spinning to face his android friend. "What's up?"

"Sticking to a consistent sleep schedule is imperative for long-term health and wellness," Baymax said, acknowledging Hiro's late start to the day. "Even on weekends, you should wake up at the same time every day, as well as go to bed early enough to ensure at least eight full hours of sleep."

"Yeah, yeah," Hiro said, laughing and waving the suggestion off, "that's what you always say."

"And you always seem to ignore me," Baymax quipped back, though his unaffected tone made it seem more like an honest assessment of the truth, rather than a wry comeback. Hiro rolled his eyes, though Baymax couldn't see, and pulled his desk keyboard closer to him. Popping open a few windows, he flipped through Facebook, twitter, even Instagram, chuckling at Honey Lemon's newest selfie with Fred and Wasabi. The girl seemed addicted to taking pictures.

It was a Sunday, and even someone like Hiro, who always had something to be working on, wasn't keen on jumping into new projects on lazy days like these, especially the day after an Expo. They always seemed to sap his energy, and he figured, what better day to kick back and recharge than a Sunday? Closing out his social media outlets which, let's be honest, he was terrible at, he drummed his fingertips on the desk, wondering exactly how to start his recharging.

"12:30 isn't too late to eat breakfast, right?" he asked, not really needing or wanting an answer; of course any time was a good time for cereal. Grabbing his phone, he nodded his head at Baymax to follow, and the two made their way down the stairs to the Kitchen. Cass was nowhere in sight, obviously down at the Café, preparing for the after-church rush. Hiro knew the nice thing to do would be to go down and help, but…get real. Like he was going to give up leisure time for work if he didn't have to. Pouring himself a bowl that was much too large to be a cereal bowl of some god-awful movie-monster-themed sugar cereal and filling it with entirely too much milk, he flopped down with his calorie-laden 'breakfast' on the couch, and with the 'on' button on the TV remote.

"Each meal of a three-meal nutrition plan for a 21 year old male should only contain roughly 730 calories," Baymax pointed out, which was thusly ignored by Hiro. "I estimate that this meal contains no less than 1100 calories."

"This counts as breakfast and lunch," Hiro said with his mouth full, not looking up. "Besides, look at the box; it contains seven key nutrients." He said this rather sarcastically, grinning to himself. "And hey, a growing boy needs all these nutrients."

"These claims are highly misleading," Baymax said, nearly dismayed in his tone, as he scanned the front and back of the cereal box. "And I highly doubt you are still growing. You are six feet one inch tall. Neither your father, nor Tadashi were taller than six feet, two inches."

"Hey, I'm still waiting on that last inch!" Hiro stabbed his spoon towards Baymax, before taking another bite. "Anyway, who knows? I feel like I could get taller."

"Perhaps height is not the direction you will grow in, eating like this." At that, Hiro turned around, his eyes wide but full of amusement at that statement.

"Excuse me?" he asked, nearly choking, "did you just sass me?"

"I am a robot. 'Sassy' is not in my programming."

"You did! Ha!" Hiro shook his head, snickering still. "That's just fantastic! A robot that sasses you! Did Tadashi write that into your programming? Cuz I know I didn't!"

"Tadashi wrote my core programming, yes." Hiro held up the remote, flickering between channels quickly, trying to find a good one to finish his breakfast in front of.

"I bet he put that in there just to mess with me," he said, spoon hanging out the side of his mouth. "That would be just like him, to call me fat from beyond the grave." He finally settled on cartoons, really solidifying to anyone watching the scene that despite his age, Hiro had not seemingly grown by a single minute since childhood.

* * *

'Bzzt bzzt bzzt!'

"Eighty seven."

'Bzzt bzzt bzzt!'

"Eighty eight…"

'Bzzt bzzt bzzt!'

"Shit." Jun let his knees drop to the carpet as he glanced up at the nightstand. His phone was buzzing on top of it, doing it's best to try and screw up his count. Rising to his feet, he ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back out of his eyes and reached for the device, shutting it off. Like always, he'd beaten his 6 am alarm. Once silenced, he tossed it back onto his unmade bed and resumed his pushup count, now slightly disgruntled at having to take a 'break' so close to the end.

"Eighty nine," he continued, dipping low enough for his nose to nearly brush the carpet, before pushing back up and away. "Ninety." It was easy work to finish up the 100 count warm up, and stretching out his back, he made his way over to the closet, picking a shirt at random and pulling it on. Throwing on a pair of sweats and tennishoes, he ignored the several text messages that had just appeared in his phone's inbox as he shoved it into his pocket, and locked up his apartment behind him.

His morning run seemed to fly by that day. Up Gold ave, cut across Chesspeak blv, down State st until you hit Bloomington, then take a right. Since it was a Sunday, he took the scenic route around the bay, though his attention was obviously not on the scenery. As Jun ran, he tried to let his mind go blank, as he usually did, but he kept wandering back to the events of the last night. He knew it wouldn't help anything to worry, but he couldn't help but over analyze everything that had happened. Especially since so much was riding on this endeavor turning out perfectly. Had he come on too strong? Or maybe not strong enough? Had he potentially scared the kid away? Maybe he shouldn't have tried to get Hiro alone, maybe he should have stayed to speak longer. Maybe he shouldn't have been so elusive in the beginning? Maybe…maybe…maybe…

Before he knew it, he found himself on the street leading back to his apartment building. He had to check his run tracking app to make sure he had indeed finished his whole run, and in a daze, made his way back home. It hadn't felt like three miles. He didn't even feel winded.

Jun wasn't the type to eat breakfast, especially not when coffee was such an easy replacement. He'd poured himself a cup after a quick shower, and still shaking water droplets from his dark hair, he sat down on the couch, and finally decided to check those messages.

'Boss wants to see you.' The first one was from one of Jun's subordinates, and he winced at what it said. Boss wanting to see you was never a good thing.

'The account's been liquidated' read another, though this one wasn't as dour.

'Good,' Jun texted back, setting his mug down on the end table beside the dark green couch that dominated the main floorspace of his apartment. 'Now don't fuck up the transfer.'

The third text was an automated message; Jun was late on his utilities payment. He snorted in amusement at this, and quickly switched over to an internet tab. Pulling up his bank's mobile site, he punched in the company's login and password, and selecting one of the more well-stocked accounts, scheduled a payment. Maybe it wasn't exactly the type of thing he should have been using that money for but, hey, who was going to begrudge him $128.72? In an account of hundreds of thousands? And these were just the 'legitimate' accounts; not like the company didn't have millions in their offshore investments. One electric and water bill payment wouldn't even register to the higher ups.

Besides, Jun had been doing it for months.

* * *

"Hiro Hamada, honestly!" Cass set her hands on her hips in that oh-so-authoritative way as she took in the sight before her; her nephew, passed out with one leg drapped over the back of the couch, his mouth open as he snored slightly, a bowl of milk that once contained way too much cereal still sitting on his stomach with the spoon dangling halfway out. Baymax sat on the armchair beside the couch, curiously clicking through the channels with the remote. Cass sighed, rolling her eyes at the pair, and walked over. Plucking the bowl off his stomach, she went to set it in the sink. "Honestly, 2 pm and you're napping after sleeping in all morning," she huffed. Hiro stirred in his sleep slightly, mumbling something incoherent, before settling back down.

"I have tried to inform him of the proper way to regulate his sleep schedule," Baymax remarked. "But for some reason he continues to disregard my advice."

"Yours and mine both, pal," Cass said, making her way back to the staircase; she couldn't leave the café for long. She glanced one more time at the boy everyone called a genius, but watching him lazing around the house like this, it was easy to forget he spent his free time engineering and crime fighting.

* * *

"Buzz me up." Jun smiled slightly as the poor lobby receptionist gave a start to his sudden appearance. She looked him up and down rather flustered, before flicking her bangs out of her face, trying to regain composure.

"Which floor?" she asked, but Jun just rolled his eyes at this.

"You know which floor," he said, none-too-kindly. The woman was young, not any older than Jun he thought. With an older woman, that manner of speaking would likely get him nowhere, but he was pleased to see his general demeanor seemed to do the trick, intimidating the clueless little girl enough to buzz him right up to the penthouse offices. Making his way to the elevator, he stepped in and immediately pressed the 'shut doors' button, to keep anyone else from trying to catch a ride up with him. He wasn't very fond of company.

Jun didn't particularly like dressing up. He did so when he needed to, which was unfortunately often, today being one of those cases. Meeting with the Boss was no laughing matter, and wasn't something to take lightly; when you met with the Boss, you made a point to look sharp. He wasn't going to tolerate any less in his place of business.

'MY place of business,' Jun thought bitterly, stepping out of the elevator when the doors slid back open. His shoes clicked softly on the polished marbled floor as he walked directly past Boss' secretary's desk.

"Excuse me," she called…no, demanded, really. Jun halted, his hands in the pockets of his slacks, and turned slightly to glance back at her. He said nothing, but the pointed look he gave her was all the recognition she needed before she continued. "Mr. Albricht doesn't have any appointments this morning; I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave."

"I'm the reason he's cleared his morning schedule, sweetheart," Jun said, smiling rather bitterly at her. "Guess I got myself in trouble, again."

"Well, wait," she said, standing as Jun continued past her, towards Boss' back office. "You can't just-"

"Whoops," Jun said, placing his hand on one of the silver handles of the large double doors, turning it. "Looks like I can." He looked back at her and winked, before slipping into the office, and shutting the door behind him.

* * *

As Hiro made his fourth revolution in the swivel chair, Baymax cocked his head to one side, puzzled at why anyone would want to willingly induce dizziness in themselves.

"Excessive spinning can cause a disruption of the normal workings of the inner ear," Baymax said, watching as Hiro put his foot down, halting him mid-rotation. "Causing dizziness, nauseousness, and a temporary loss of equilibrium."

"It seems that anything fun comes with a pretty long list of side effects," Hiro observed, relenting, and pushing his chair back towards the desk. The two of them had migrated down to the garage, still avoiding Aunt Cass and any real work for the time being. He shoved the sleeves of his sweater up past his elbows, and proceeded to continue coding the project he was working on.

"If that is the case, it is only because your idea of 'fun' is rather dangerous," Baymax said. His cameras tracked the lines of code rapidly appearing across the screen, before glancing down to watch Hiro's fingers fly across the keyboard.

"Dangerous and fun are pretty much just synonyms, buddy," He replied, pausing, and fishing around in his sweater pockets for his phone; he forgot that he needed to text Fred today to remind him to-

As he yanked his phone from his pocket, a piece of paper fluttered out. It caught his eye as it landed face-up on the ground, and when he bent to pick it up, he finally recognized it; it was that business card. Scoffing, he tossed it onto the desk beside him, not meaning to pay it any more mind. That Jun guy had been sort of off-putting anyway. Hiro couldn't quite put his finger on what it was about the guy that he didn't like, but, he knew there had to be a good reason for his gut to be telling him to forget about that guy. His gut wasn't often wrong.

But…about fifteen more lines of code in, his eyes briefly flickered to the silver lettering on the card. He tried to get himself to concentrate back on his project, but again he found his eyes wandering. And before he knew it, his hand was picking it up. And his eyes were scanning the name and information. And his fingers were typing that name into Google. Damn it.

There wasn't a whole lot of relevant search results, it seemed. It confused Hiro as he scrolled through the results; if this was a wealthy, successful investor, shouldn't there be more information on him out there? His stomach churned nervously. 'Check his Wikipedia page,' he thought to himself, bringing up the website, and plunking in Jun's name and company, 'Kurosawa Insights'. He felt somewhat relieved when a page did pop up, and the picture on the page matched the face from Hiro's memory of the previous night.

'Kurosawa Insights,' the first paragraph began, 'is a privately owned Japanifornian investment-brokerage firm headquartered in San Fransokyo. Its founder, President and current CEO is Jun L. Kurosawa. KI has 14 branch offices around the country, with headquarters and three branch offices based in San Fransokyo.' Scrolling further, he skimmed over the 'history' section, his eye catching on one paragraph in particular:

'While KI's initial investments proved both lucrative and typical, starting in 2016, CEO Kurosawa began taking the company offline, shifting stocks from the public to private sector, and closed the company off to outside trading and marketing deals. The company went dark for two years, though tax records show that no major layoffs occurred in this time frame, and payroll continued normally among the employees of the firm. Then, without a formal announcement, the company resumed investment strategies in Dec of 2018. With the company replanted in the private sector, Kurosawa began increasing charitable donations as well as start-up investments, with the most notable investment being his 8 million backing of Yamasota Ministries in SacramentOkayama.' The name of the company, Yamasota Ministries, was highlighted blue, and Hiro clicked it, redirecting to their Wikipedia page in another window. A picture of a small building adorned the front of the page, alongside another picture of who Hiro assumed was the founder of the company, Igari Yamasota.

"Hey, Baymax," Hiro called, taking Baymax's attention away from the moth that was fluttering around the overhead light in the garage workshop. "C'mere a minute, I want you to download and cross reference any information of this Yamasota guy and his company; make sure it's legit." Baymax approached the computer and, setting a hand on the top, gained a sort of far-away look on his face.

"Download complete," Baymax said, and began to sift through the information he'd retrieved. "Yamasota Ministries," he began to recite, "a SacramentOkayama-based foreign aid missionary group. Specializing in mission work and disaster relief aid, it was funded in 2019 by a rather unknown investment banker, and remains funded to this day by various charity groups and wealthy beneficiaries. There are 14,129 hits when searched across the web."

"14000?" Hiro asked, glancing back at his screen. "Okay, so that checks out…let's see what we can dig up on this Kurosawa guy." He exited out of that tab, clicking back over to the KI page, and navigated through hyperlink to Jun's page. "Now let's see if we can't cross reference this guy and his company, and see why I wasn't getting any hits with a simple google search." With Baymax's help, Hiro made his way easily into Google's main algorithm program, and inputting the information, sifted through the raw data it spit out.

The raw search did little to quell his curiosity, though. There was strangely just not that much information to be found about Jun's company, save for the Wikipedia page, a few articles that mentioned Kurosawa Insights, an online newspaper headline from 2016 announcing KI's disappearance, and a few other unrelated things. Taking another look at the business card, it didn't even contain a website name, but Jun's name, and two phone numbers, one a text-only number.

"What a way to run a company," Hiro huffed, clicking back over to Jun's page, and scrolling through it. "If you're looking for investments, this is NOT the way to do it." He scrolled down to the 'Achievements' tab under his personal page, and skimmed there, his eyebrows raising slightly at what he found.

'Having been nominated for and won the Japanifornia Better Banking Lifetime Achievement award in 2020, CEO Jun Kurosawa declined to attend the annual award banquet, citing a desire for anonymity. Later asked as to why one of the most successful upstart Banking firms in Japanifornia would decline the award, Kurosawa was quoted as saying "Why would I want an award for having money? That's not something you should be congratulated for. Money is the least of my concerns." Kurosawa later redacted his comments, apologizing for 'such an unprofessional outburst at the media'.'

Sitting back, Hiro attempted to digest everything he'd just read. This Jun guy seemed to him at first glance to be rather seedy; not unlike Krei. But what was written here seemed to paint a slightly different picture. They guy obviously liked funding charities and 'good causes'. He wasn't your typical ego-inflated business man; so then, why had Hiro gotten such a bad feeling from him? And there was still the matter of why there was no website for one of the supposedly highest ranked private sector investment companies in the nation, and why someone so successful had hardly any hits on the internet?

"This is weirding me out," Hiro finally said, reaching out to put the computer screen to sleep. Standing and stretching, he turned to leave and try to see if he could swipe anything from the café without Cass noticing him, when he paused. He quickly reached back and snatched the business card off the desk, and shoved it back in his pocket. He was done thinking about this, he told himself. I'll never look at this stupid little card again, he thought. But….he wanted to keep it safe. Just in case.

* * *

"I have to say I'm impressed, Kurosawa." Jun watched the Boss take a drag from his cigarette and blow the smoke out sideways. He stood opposite the large desk in the corner, his back to the windows that dominated the western wall of the top floor office. Boss sat behind said desk, leaning back in his chair and regarding Jun with a certain amused stare. Holding the cigarette between his lips, he leaned forward, sifting through a few papers that sat on the desk's surface, to withdraw a file folder. "You didn't do this all yourself, did you?"

"I may as well have," he said, almost more to himself than to Boss, but the later laughed anyway, his deep voice sounding like crunching gravel as he did so. "I have more than a few friends who can easily wip up a few fake articles and pages."

"But wiping the slate clean," Boss continued, raising a bushy eyebrow at the younger man. "Your name doesn't come up with anything anymore. That takes some work."

"Not really," Jun said, looking away. Receiving praise from the Boss was…uncomfortable for him, to say the very least. He didn't much care for this man, but he certainly didn't want the alternative. That was an experience he'd rather not repeat. His tongue errantly pressed against the back of his teeth as he thought this, the gap where he was still missing one obvious and poignant. "Just time. And money. Both of which I wasn't pressed on."

"Speaking of money," Boss said, leaning forward and setting his elbows on the dark, polished wood. "I hear the liquidation of the Ferguson account was successful?" Jun nodded once. "Good. And I trust the transfer is in capable hands?"

"It's in my hands, so…yes." Boss chuckled slightly, blowing out more foul smelling smoke, and stood. Only standing could you fully appreciate just how massive Boss was; Jun was tall by most standards, yet he always ended up feel four feet tall standing next to Boss. But it wasn't even necessarily his height that gave him his imposing aura. Perhaps it was only Jun who felt this way, given his…history with the Boss. But the way Boss had circled around Jun to walk past him and stand in front of the massive windows at the other side of the office made him feel a bit like a piece of meat being circled by a vulcher.

"I like you, Jun," Boss said, motioning for the younger man to follow him over and stand beside him.

"You do?" he asked, trying to be purposefully wry, though a small part of him was honestly surprised.

"Sure I do!" His forehead wrinkled slightly, emphasizing his receding hairline. His slick black hair was going gray at his temples, and if he wasn't clean-shaven, Jun knew his beard would be coming in gray as well. "'Course I do! I practically raised you, kid!" He smiled down at Jun, but even his smile seemed predatory. It was more like he was baring his teeth before striking than smiling. "Which is why I would hate what would happen to you if this whole scheme of your falls through."

"I'm sure." Jun's mind went back to the missing tooth. "But you don't need to waste your concern on me, Sir. Everything's going according to plan."

"That's good, that's good." Boss shoved his hands into the pockets of the perfectly tailored jacket he wore. "'Cuz we need the Hamada kid taken care of. Him and those other 'heros' of his have already busted scores of my men."

"It's all under control, Boss. I can hand-"

"Listen to me, Jun." Boss' oversized hand shot out then, cutting Jun's sentence off as he grabbed his chin, yanking his face around to look the Boss dead in the eye. "This is already your second chance. I don't give second chances. But for you, I was persuaded to make an exception." He paused, eyes narrowing. "Don't make me regret that decision." Letting Jun go, the younger men took a few steps back, indignation and anger clearly scrawled across his face. The two of them locked eyes, trying to stare the other down in the office that had once belonged to Jun's father. In the office that should have belonged to Jun.

"You won't," he spat, turning on his heel, and shoving the double doors open. He ignored the laughter he heard from inside the office as he made his way back out past the pissed off secretary, into the elevator, down through the lobby, and out to the valet. He barked at the poor boy to get his car, and soon, he found himself weaving through traffic. Not necessarily to get home; just to get out of the city. To take a drive to clear his head. God knew he needed it.


End file.
